tian's death! What art thou, but a gate of life, a portal of heaven, the threshold of eternity! - Dewey.

CXLIX. ADAM AND ORLANDO.

Orlando. WHY, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go.
Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here.
Orl. What! wouldst thou have me go and beg my food?
Or, with a base and boisterous sword, enforce

A thievish living on the common road?

This I must do, or know not what to do:
Yet this I will not do, do how I can;

I rather will subject me to the malice

Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother.

Adam. But do not so; I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I saved under your father,

Which I did store, to be my foster-nurse,

When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners thrown;
Take that; and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
All this I give you: let me be your servant;
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty:
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;

Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly let me go with you;
I'll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities.

Orl. O, good old man! how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat, but for promotion;
And having that, do choke their service up
Even with the having: it is not so with thee.
But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree,
That cannot so much as a blossom yield,
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry :
But come thy ways, we 'll go along together;
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We'll light upon some settled low content.

Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee,
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
Here lived 1, but now live here no more.

At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
But at fourscore, it is too late a week:
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
Than to die well, and not my master's debtor.

SHAKSPEARE

CL.

A SISTER PLEADS FOR A BROTHER'S LIFE.

Isalla. I AM a woful suitor to your honor, Please but your honor hear me.

Angelo. Well; what's your suit?

Isab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor,
And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war 'twixt will and will not.

Ang. Well; the matter?

Isab. I have a brother is condemned to die : I do beseech you, let it be his fault,121

And not my brother.

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault 's condemned, ere it be done :

Mine were the very cipher of a function,

To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,

And let go by the actor.

Isab. O just, but severe law!

Must he needs die?

Ang. Maiden, no remedy.

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither Heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
Ang. I will not do 't.

Isab. But can you, if you would?

Ang. Look! what I will not, that I cannot do.

Isab. But might you do 't, and do the world no wrong

If so your heart were touched with that remorse
As mine is to him?

Ang. He's sentenced; 't is too late.

Isab. Too late? why, no: I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again. Well, believe this:

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,141
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt like him ;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to Heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabe! should it then be thus?

No! I would tell what 't were to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Isal Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And He that might the 'vantage best have took
Found out the remedy! How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

Ang. Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him; he must die to-morrow.

Isab. To-morrow? O, that 's sudden! Spare him, spare him. He's not prepared for death! Even for our kitchens

We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve Heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves? Good, good, my lord, bethink you :
Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There 's many have committed it.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept : Those many had not dared to do that evil,

ΕΙ

If the first man that did the edict infringe
Had answered for his deed: now, 't is awake;
Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatched and born),
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, where they live, to end.

Isab. Yet show some pity!

Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice;

For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismissed offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied:

Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sentence, -

And he, that suffers! O, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,

ΕΓ

For every pelting, petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.
Merciful Heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

Than the soft myrtle: But man, proud man:

Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,

His glassy essence,

like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As make the angels weep.

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:

Great men may jest with saints: 't is wit in them.
But, in the less, foul profanation.

That in the captain 's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself.

Go to your bosom:

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault; if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother's life.

Ang. [Aside. She speaks, and 't is

Such sense, my sense breeds with it. [To her.] Fare you we
Isab. Gentle, my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me.

- Come again to-morrow.

Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you! Good, my lord, turn back
Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor,
As fancy values them: but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there,
Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang. Well; come to me

To-morrow.

Isab. Heaven keep your honor safe!
Ang. Amen.

SHAKSPEARE.

CLI. THE MIND ITS OWN EDUCATOR.

1. KNOWLEDGE and virtue, or, in other words, intellectual and moral improvement, are mainly the mind's own work. The ordinary processes of direct instruction are, at best, but means, facilities, and aids, — of immense importance, it is true, but which presuppose in the mind to which they are applied an active, self moving coöperation. None can carry us up the hill of learning It must be done, if done, by the strain upon our own sinews by the wrenching of our own muscles, by the indomi

table resolution of our own wills. Without this effort on our parts, all the means of instruction which this and all other ages have devised are vain, worse than vain.

2. There is a vague notion widely prevalent that schools and ampler seminaries are able, by a power inherent in themselves, to fill the mind with learning; or that it is to be received inertly, like the influences of the atmosphere, by a mere residence at the places of instruction. But this is a sad mistake. Something, in this way, doubtless, may be effected. Something may be thus insensibly imbibed. A young person cannot pass his time, for years, in scenes like these, without catching something from the inspiration of the place. Intercourse, conversation, sympathy with his companions, will, without much voluntary effort on his part, convey some information, and mould, in some degree, the habits of his mind. But this, admitting it in its full extent, amounts to but very little. It is, moreover, too vague to be of any practical value.

3. The truth, after all, is, that the most elaborate and manifold apparatus of instruction can impart nothing of importance to the passive and inert mind. It is almost as unavailing as the warmth and light of the sun, and all the sweet influences of the heavens, shed upon the desert sands. "The schoolmaster," we are told by one, who, be it observed, is himself a prodigy of selfeducation, "the schoolmaster is abroad." The word has been caught up by the nations as prophetical of mighty changes. But the schoolmaster is abroad to little purpose, unless his pupils stand ready in their places to receive him with open and active minds, and to labor with him for their own benefit.

4. If all the means of education which are scattered over the world, and if all the philosophers and teachers of ancient and modern times, were to be collected together, and made to bring their combined efforts to bear upon an individual, all they could do would be to afford the opportunity of improvement. They could not give him a single valuable thought independently of his own exertion. All that could be accomplished must still be done within the little compass of his own mind; and they could not approach this by a hair's breadth nearer than access was made for them by his own coöperation. Nothing short of a miracle can teach a man anything independently of this. All that he learns is effected by self-discipline, and self-discipline is the mind's own work. We all are, under God, intellectually, the makers of ourselves.

5. Virtue, religion, as well as knowledge, must also be mainly the mind's own work. Here, too, external means are useless, without the earnest coöperation of the individual. The usual